IREL 350: Globalization

In Professor Moore’s Globalization course, students created graphic essays using Comic Life to show the impact of globalization on a specific population. The creative exercise allowed them to explain complex issues of globalization–specifically, time-space expansion and/or time-space compression–to a broader audience. The essay was completed in stages: students learned to tell stories and present complex concepts through images; articulated an audience and objective for the essay; researched the topic; developed a script that included character backstory; gathered images; identified a specific visual style; and produced the final graphic essay using Comic Life software. While most students found the software easy to learn, some struggled with shifting the focus from the written to visual medium. Despite this, many saw the benefit of producing a research project that utilized creative storytelling in order to help a specific audience understand a complex issue.